


Give Yourself Away

by rogueshadows



Series: Life Is Like the Surf [1]
Category: Y tu mamá también (2001)
Genre: Angst, Fix-It of Sorts, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-06
Updated: 2018-04-09
Packaged: 2019-03-14 13:43:53
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 10,058
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13591284
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rogueshadows/pseuds/rogueshadows
Summary: They hurt each other a lot. They also meet again."Life is like the surf, so give yourself away like the sea."





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [misskatieleigh](https://archiveofourown.org/users/misskatieleigh/gifts), [ANTchan](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ANTchan/gifts).



> Thanks to my lovely beta misskatieleigh and also to ANTchan and fallsouthwinter for yelling about this with me a LOT and giving me some great ideas. The fic wouldn't exist without them. I can't believe I'm still wrecked over this movie. 
> 
> The first chapter covers some events that happened in the movie, in the second chapter they meet again.

Julio can hear Tenoch’s stuttered noises and the scrape of the bed across the floor before he even comes into the room. He stands in the doorway, blinking water from his eyes at the scene with a low, swooping ache in his stomach. Luisa draws Tenoch up her body with wanting hands, gripping his firm shoulders as he thrusts too hard and fast. Julio feels frozen inside even as his face warms, wishing he could press back the ugly feeling of heartbreak mounting in his chest. 

They had both come here to screw Luisa, after all, why should it bother him that Tenoch actually succeeded? The resentment of not being chosen first is far past between them, always considered a hanger on in Tenoch's eyes anyway. Why should any of this affect him, and _god_ , why does he make himself stand there and watch despite the pain?

Tenoch comes quickly, just like all those times at the pool, panting out words Julio can’t hear over his own pulse rushing in his ears. Memories of Tenoch, choking out Salmanita like a curse, come unbidden, Tenoch’s voice seared in Julio’s mind, summer sun licking up his own stomach as he shuddered to the sound. 

Julio backs out of the room. He can’t bear the thought of returning to his own yet, knowing Tenoch will surely come to gloat. Instead, he walks quietly down to the pool , half wanting to drown himself just to stop the pain that’s churning in his chest. He sits at the edge, anger tempered by the sunlight, trying so hard to make sense of what he feels before he has to face Tenoch again. Of course, that moment comes too soon. Julio hears Tenoch whistle down from the balcony in greeting, warning bells ringing in his mind that he should get up and go back inside before he does something he will regret. Tenoch is down the stairs before Julio can gather the strength to stand, looking casual and far too pleased with himself. Blissfully unaware, as always, of anything but himself, looking past the fact that the pool is filthy just for another chance to prove himself better than Julio in a race.

The truth builds behind Julio’s tongue as he swims, an ugly mix of guilt and elation that, for once, he has something over Tenoch. He wonders if the admission would keep Tenoch away, if it would shake him from the transient thrill of fucking Luisa. Julio stays underwater as long as he can bear, wishing he could stop himself from lashing out when he knows it will do no good. Tenoch letting him win is the last straw, or at least that’s how he reasons it in his mind. The distance between them makes it easier to bite the words out and let them hang in the humid air.

“I fucked Ana.”

“What?” Tenoch’s voice is barely audible over the shift of lapping water and the rooster’s crowing. Julio can’t take the words back so he repeats them, trying to bolster the words with anger.

“You heard me, I fucked your girlfriend.” He watches the confusion and hurt filter over Tenoch’s face, wishing it felt satisfying. 

\---

Tenoch sits in the back of the car alone, glancing at Julio’s eyes in the rearview mirror and hating himself for it. He wants to catalogue each expression on Julio’s face, thinking of how the regret has so easily faded from his eyes since the night before. The pain in Tenoch’s stomach wouldn’t go so easily. No detail or excuse could bring relief against the thought of Julio gasping into Ana’s ear as he came. Tenoch could have admitted his own transgression then, could have easily hashed it out and faulted it all to the sluts they dated. But he didn’t _want_ that. He wanted to see how far he could push Julio’s forgiveness, just to test how much he really meant to his friend, a fierceness burning in his chest far beyond what he’d ever felt for Ana in the first place.

That same painful desperation wouldn’t let him sleep, made him pace the small dirty room in cyclical motion. It made him want to scream, and smoke, and cry all at once. Julio looked _pathetic,_ his mind spit hurtfully, at war with how satisfying it was to have Julio go pliant so easily at Tenoch’s approach. He laid there, wearing only his cheap white underwear, all vulnerable and sad eyed as he watched Tenoch with too much focus. Holding Julio’s jaw in his hand, feeling the rhythm of his pulse beneath his fingers, he had asked again for details, for reasons, for _anything_. Tenoch had never been in a fight, but he edged at one, almost wishing Julio would get fed up and tell him it was enough.If Julio had known then what Tenoch had done, he would have pushed back, probably would have shouted more and woke the whole motel. The whimpering sincerity of the apology on Julio’s lips did nothing to make him to feel better. 

Watching Luisa squirm into Julio’s lap hadn’t helped much either, hating the way that Julio and himself would forever be linked together now in her mind. Tenoch tries to push it far from his thoughts, but the car still smells like sex, sitting less than a foot away from where Julio had twisted and came with his face buried in Luisa’s breasts. Tenoch had forced himself back down behind the bushes, but he’s sure Luisa saw him watching anyway, her soft apology and regret burning in his ears. If she hadn’t urged him back to the car Tenoch thinks he might have stayed there out of spite.

Tenoch tenses his jaw. He thinks cruelly on the confession behind his lips, hoping it will hurt Julio just as much as Julio hurt him. Maybe that will finally resolve the ache in Tenoch’s chest.

Tenoch speaks, breaking the stilted silence of the car and Julio barely glances up.

“Me too.” 

“You too what?” Luisa asks, still unaware of how small the matter of her fucking Julio felt in comparison to everything else. Julio takes an unaffected puff of his cigarette, focused on driving still when Tenoch forces out his name.

“Julio,” Tenoch says, wanting it to hurt when Julio’s eyes finally flit up. “Me too, _faggot_.”

“You too _what_?” Julio echoes Luisa’s confusion and Tenoch feels so frustrated at the fact that he doesn’t understand. He’s blunt with the final blow.

“I fucked your girlfriend, Cece.”

\---

“I better get going. My folks will start to worry.” Tenoch says to Luisa, feeling like he’s been hit by a bus. He doesn’t miss the glance she shoots between him and Julio, but she nods kindly all the same.

“Julio also has to return the car to his sister,” she says, like she somehow knows they haven’t spoken. Tenoch nods, still not glancing to his friend, not knowing what the open sight of him would do. He can still taste the bile of his bad decisions, the tequila that had made him too loose and honest. Luisa says she’s staying there and he’s glad, tuning out the rest to go lie in the hammock and block them out. He wishes he could do as much to the voice in his head, the constant reminder of the words that slipped out as he came. _~~Lo quiero, te amo. Julio.~~_

He shuts his eyes.

\---

Tenoch edges closer to Luisa, barely listening as she speaks. He doesn’t look at Julio at all, just as he expected. He wishes he didn’t know Tenoch so well, that he could have been wrong this once. It’s a wonder Luisa had put any faith in them at all with how obvious they both are. A quiet part of Julio’s soul wishes he could stay behind too, absolve himself in the sea and let Tenoch drive far away in his beat up car. Luisa knows too much though, she would never allow it. She would probably tell him to face up to it, the way she had on the side of the road as they fought. Julio takes a sip of his beer, washing away the taste of Tenoch’s mouth.

They’ll head home soon.

\---

Julio stands to shake his hand and Tenoch somehow manages not to recoil, schooling his face into something placid. Even the brief press of their palms together is a reminder of how they felt that night, tracing the edge of his jaw as they kissed. He can’t leave the diner fast enough, clutching his bag from the store and turning away. Outside, he passes the window and doesn’t turn to look, only making out the shape of Julio in his periphery, half obscured by the reflections of the street. He keeps walking away. 

\---

Tenoch powers past the window, knuckles almost white on the handle of his bag. Julio only allows himself the briefest glance and wishes immediately that he hadn’t. He turns his head swiftly, afraid Tenoch might look back, or that it might sting to see if he doesn’t. Even with the glass separating them he still feels like Tenoch has knocked into him as he barrels past. The weight of seeing him, outside of old photos, of hearing him tell Luisa’s sad story, comes crashing down on him all at once. Julio blinks away the edge of tears threatening to fall, raising his hand and waving for the check.

He hopes they never meet again.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The fix-it portion, I promise it has a happy ending.

\--- 7 YEARS LATER ---

JUNE 2006

They meet again.

On a beach years later, far from Oaxaca and Heaven’s Mouth. Tenoch looks different, but Julio still recognizes him in a single glance, seeing past the long hair and scruffy beard Tenoch had never been able to grow as a teenager. Julio wonders if he should even bother going over, but he stands to brush the sand from his body all the same, edging daringly closer. _Just to look_ , he bargains, then he will move on. It’s a big enough beach, he can move further down and just pretend he’d never seen Tenoch at all. 

Tenoch never let him make the choices back then, and still doesn’t now, looking up from the beer in his hand and meeting Julio’s gaze across the small distance. For a moment he goes still, but then he surprises Julio, in a way that isn’t a betrayal for the first time in their lives, when his mouth draws into a small smile.

“Julio!” Tenoch calls out his name, like there aren’t too many years of distance and resentment between them after all. Julio still considers turning away, pretending he hadn’t heard his name over the sound of the surf, but something in Tenoch draws him still. Unexpected hesitation flashes in Tenoch’s gaze as Julio makes himself approach, like he hadn’t thought any further ahead. Julio tamps down the sudden jolt of anxiety in his chest, forcing a smile on his own face and keeping a few feet between them.

“Hey,” Julio says, feeling at a loss, like he’s slipped into another dimension. What do you say to your first love when you know he’d rather be seen as anything _but_ that? 

Tenoch sets his drink aside and stands from his towel, reaching out a hand between them to shake. Julio takes it, half out of shock, feeling the warm calluses at Tenoch’s fingertips. Everything about Tenoch was once so soft. Julio would wonder if he’s really the same person at all if not for his dark, unmistakable eyes. The familiarity of Tenoch’s gaze brushing over his own body makes Julio go warm like a sunburn still, even after so much has changed.

“You here alone?” Julio asks, hating how pointed it sounds, wondering if he’s going to have to face a wife and children returning from the sea. He doesn’t know if he could keep up the pretense that they were simply old friends to whatever stranger has met Tenoch’s needs. He braces for the worst, but Tenoch nods, jarring Julio from his preconceptions again. 

He’s alone and so is Julio. Maybe, just maybe Julio can stand a brief conversation, shake their ghosts loose and move on. 

“For the weekend,” Tenoch says, “I’m...I’m a writer. My agent owns a house he lets me use.” 

Tenoch looks almost shy saying that, and Julio tries not to seem so thrown, failing with his words.“That’s...the last thing I expected,” Julio says. It’s not very tactful but honesty will have to do.

“It’s nothing good, just, fuck...this is embarrassing. Have you seen _La Vida de mi Corazon_?”

Julio squints at Tenoch in the fading sunlight, taking a deep breath and forgetting his trepidation in a burst of sheer amusement.

“The _telenovela_?”

\---

“Yeah,” Tenoch admits, letting out a self deprecating laugh. He drops his gaze to his hands to keep from getting caught in Julio’s green eyes. He launches into an explanation of how he’d wound up writing for the show, skirting around anything too personal with basic facts.

(Julio doesn’t have to know how dropping out of school had shattered his relationship with his family. How Tenoch had broken off an engagement three years ago, with a girl he tried to love, just a month away from the altar. How he lived alone in a one bedroom apartment and wrote and wrote until he finally was able to make ends meet. Tenoch reasons that Julio wouldn’t care, and that, for all he’s changed, he’d still rather die than be pitied.)

Miraculously, Julio listens and Tenoch can’t help but feel relieved, as much as he doesn’t deserve it. He never deserved Julio’s attention really, it had just taken too long for him to notice.

It wasn’t fair of him to call Julio over, it would have served him right to be ignored. It had taken minutes to even muster the courage, only pushed over the edge when one of his sneaking glances was returned. Julio’s brow was furrowed, like he was trying to puzzle Tenoch out or look past him. Tenoch’s mouth opened and the words slipped past his craving tongue.

In the moment before Julio’s reaction, he ached for anything, even the closure of Julio calling him an asshole would do. He knows now who he is, what he dares to want, how he hurt too many people figuring it out. It was too late with Julio, but they could have this, a single kind moment by the sea instead of a thousand laced with Tenoch’s fear.

He finishes the simplified review of the past seven years and wonders if he has the right to ask Julio what brought him to the beach. Questions burn in his heart: ‘What’s he doing? How has he been?’ Has he kissed other men since? _Is he happy_?’ Tenoch hopes he is, even as a selfish part of him is pained by the thought.

It isn’t like Tenoch thinks of Julio every day, not anymore at least. He has no right, not after cutting Julio from his life so wholly. He writes about him though, in every longing glance on the stupid television show, each flare of anger between lovers bringing his own past swirling back no matter how watered down and overdramatized they end up being on the screen. Sometimes he thinks he wouldn’t be such a good writer if he hadn’t torn so much of his own life apart.

“You’ve been well?” Tenoch asks, purposefully broad so Julio won’t feel trapped by it. 

“Yeah,” Julio says, “I work in a hospital, your show is on a lot there actually.”

Tenoch nods, biting back a laugh. He wonders if Julio will leave it there, if he’ll walk away, but instead he continues as Tenoch had. They’re _talking_ and the tension in his chest fades even if it’s meaningless. Tenoch feels lighter and heavier all at once at the possibilities that could hold. He learns that Julio had become a lab tech and the money is good. That he’d moved out of his mother’s apartment just after university with a friend. He lives alone now, still in the city. If Julio would allow it, Tenoch thinks, he’d be glad to stand there all day listening to such mundane slips of fact. 

Julio won’t, eyes drifting to his watch almost as soon as Tenoch dares to think otherwise. He makes a polite excuse, _long drive back to the city, early shift tomorrow_. DF is only two hours away and he imagines Julio could stay, if he wanted, but he doesn’t press. Instead, Tenoch forces another smile and nods. There’s an awkward beat between them, a question of shaking hands or just backing away. _Never to see each other again_ , Tenoch’s mind supplies painfully. He’d thought as much seven years ago though, and here they both were. 

(Is it too much to hope that they could have a third chance?)

Tenoch reaches out, making the choice if only for his own sanity. Julio grasps his hand, shaking it firmly and perfunctory. Tenoch tries not to be obvious as he watches Julio in the moment, wanting to memorize Julio’s features all over again, like the images that are still burned in his mind from so long ago. 

Julio walks three steps before Tenoch calls out his name awkwardly again, standing with his hand clenched around his phone in his pocket. 

\---

“We should exchange numbers,” Tenoch says suddenly, already pulling his phone out and flipping it open.

Julio had almost forgotten, the way Tenoch expected so much to be a given and for the first time that day Julio considers telling him to go fuck himself. _Why try to kid themselves pretending they could still be friends?_ The all too familiar flare of resentment catches him off guard, the moment stretching out for almost too long before he answers. 

“Sure,” Julio says. It’s not as if Tenoch will call anyway. If this is just another thing to make him feel better about himself then so be it. He rattles off the number, and Tenoch enters it deftly, shooting off a text with his own number back. Julio’s phone pings once. He doesn’t bother to check that the message came through. Tenoch is still looking at him intently, biting his lips like he’s trying to think of something else to say. Julio cuts him off before he can, not knowing if he can stand some parting apology. 

“I really have to get going,” Julio insists again, the truth in abstract. (He had planned to waste more of the night here, but not with Tenoch. No, Tenoch makes him too nostalgic, too weak. He can’t stay and let himself hang on Tenoch’s words like nothing has happened.)

“Some other time,” Tenoch says, letting him go. Julio wonders if it’s hope in his eyes or desperation. If Tenoch is looking for absolution, Julio doesn’t have it. He almost wants to suggest to Tenoch that visiting Luisa’s grave would do more good for them both. Julio pushes the cold thought away, hating himself a bit for it. Tenoch always brought out the worst in him. He remembers in vivid clarity just how much hurt is left between them, something no amount of smiles and small talk can solve.

Julio retreats out of self preservation, only daring to glance back when he’s far enough away. He lingers on the edge of the sand grass, just enough of a masochist to watch Tenoch bathed in the glow of the sunset. He watches Tenoch slip off his shirt and jog out towards the sea, wading in until the waves obscure him. 

Like breaking from a spell, Julio finally looks away and leaves.

\---

Tenoch picks up the phone off the nightstand, flipping it over in his hand and staring up at the water stained ceiling of his apartment. It’s late, but the neighbors are awake, playing music that makes the walls vibrate. He doesn’t mind the noise or the way it makes him feel like he’s just slipped off from a party.

It’s been a week since he ran into Julio, since he pressed his luck further in asking for a number. He didn’t have the right and still Julio had given it. He has to wonder if it means anything despite how selfish it feels to think of Julio at all. The admission hadn’t stopped the number from burning in his pocket the whole week, daring him to actually get up the nerve to call. 

He drank cheap beer with dinner, hoping it would make falling asleep easier than it had been the past few nights. Insomnia gave no respite from the old words and wounds clouding his dreams, the image of Julio now versus then and the image of himself blurring. He’d woken from a nightmare where he and Julio died together driving home from the trip and gotten three pages of work out of the choked feeling in his chest before breaking down.

Now he doesn’t want to shut his eyes again, knowing the only person who could possibly understand that probably still hates him. 

(Sometimes it hurts more that he can’t even muster his own old resentment in response. He’d known Julio liked Ana when he made his move on her in the first place. The fact that that had been the initial draw of her feels obvious in retrospect. If he hadn’t been so spiteful then, he wonders, how much of this could have been avoided? Of all the crossroads in his mind, he thinks, that was him at his most petty.)

He can see all the ways the call might go so clearly, a king of making up endless scenarios as a necessity for work. Julio could ignore the call entirely, he could answer and hang up, he could answer and give Tenoch a piece of his mind. Tenoch could apologize, Tenoch could cry, Tenoch could try to say what he means for once instead of pretending. 

(Had Julio always known that about him? Part of him wants to call just to ask that; to rip the bandaid off of a seven year old wound, a five year regret, and a thousand lost possibilities out of sheer curiosity.)

It’s late. Would that make Julio more upset or more understanding of how twisted Tenoch feels inside? Of how much he _wanted,_ and, as he dares to think, how much he still wants from Julio? None of the eventualities stop his shaking hands as he presses the button that sends the call through.

It rings twice and Tenoch hangs up.

\---

Julio’s phone rings loudly on his nightstand, making him fumble from sleep. When he spots the hour on his clock he feels disoriented, wondering who would call, if it was a wrong number or an emergency from his family. He looks at the number and doesn’t recognize it. He turns over to go back to sleep, cursing the idiot who was calling someone at 2 AM in the first place. His mind settles, eyes shut and breathing steadying out again, until a thought that won’t leave him alone invades it.

He opens the text with the number he hadn’t bothered to save. _Of course_ it’s the same.

He could never sleep through anger, the same way Tenoch couldn’t that night in the motel. He presses the button to call back before he can think better of it.

“Asshole, you woke me and I have work in four hours. What do you want?”

“I’m sorry, go back to sleep,” Tenoch says, and then more softly, “ _fuck_.” He considers it, considers letting Tenoch off the hook. If he knew for certain that Tenoch wouldn’t do this again it would be perfect.

“Tenoch, you can’t just tell me what to do anymore. You can’t do _this._ This isn’t high school, you called me, now fucking own up to it.” He’s so tired of this already, sick over the sound of Tenoch’s voice all over again. “Get it over with and delete my number after.” 

He hears Tenoch swallow hard and tries to ignore the burning feeling in his chest that begs him to just barrel over whatever stupid reason Tenoch actually has for calling, to break down and admit how much this _hurts_. Out of the blue and seven years later, and he hates that Tenoch is still a scar on his heart.

“I didn’t mean to…I didn’t mean for it to be so late. I just wanted...fuck...I wanted to hear your voice. I don’t,” Tenoch cuts himself off with a shuddery breath before going silent. “I’m sorry.”

The way he says it, Julio knows he doesn’t mean just for calling late. It’s the apology he’d imagined a thousand times, at first dreamt about and then come to resent.

“Why Tenoch? What part of me running into you on the beach lets you think I’m interested in your apologies now?” The words are laced with the anger he’s been carrying for too long.

“Nothing,” Tenoch murmurs, “I know you don’t fucking want me anymore, I _know_.” He sounds like he might be crying, Julio has only seen him cry once. A treacherous part of Julio screams _of course I want you, asshole_ , because part of him always will.

“Don’t do that, don’t make it sound like I’m the one who left,” Julio says instead, hating how strained his own voice sounds. “I’m sorry too, for a lot of things I can’t change,” it’s cathartic to breath out, “but, _you_ made that decision, before the diner and after.” There are things he doesn’t say still, but he thinks them, _fuck you and your hangups that kept you from looking me in the eye that day, they should have kept you from looking at me ever again._

“I’m sorry,” Tenoch says again, “I won’t call again.” Julio hears his breathing a beat longer and then the telltale click of the line going dead. Julio makes a frustrated sound and lies back down, staring up at the high ceiling.

So much for closure.

\---

Tenoch breaks open the bottle of wine he’d been gifted by his boss on their hundredth episode together a few weeks back. He sits at the table, not bothering with a glass, taking long swigs between shudders of regret. He runs over the brief conversation in his mind until it stings.

 _I wanted to hear his voice,_ he thinks, and now he can’t unhear it, the pained way it had sounded wrapped around the truth. He wants to call back and apologize again, pray the words sink in, but he promised. When the wine does nothing but make him feel more vulnerable, dizzy and lost in his own head, he goes back to his room and writes in slurred words that will hardly make sense in the morning. They aren’t for an episode, not for anything in particular but he needs to get them out.

He passes out trying to think of a cruel metaphor for Julio’s lips.

\---

Julio goes to work on little sleep, talking himself out of social niceties with excuses that he must be coming down with something. His work, at least, is quiet, set down a long corridor apart from the exam rooms. He runs through the blood cultures and paperwork sent down to him without trouble, thankful that this is a job he could do in his sleep by now. The coffee helps until it doesn’t, the bitter taste reminding him too much of what he’d said on the phone last night. He hates himself for even bringing up the diner at all. 

He sighs, stripping off his gloves and leaning back in his chair to press the heels of his hands to his eyes. Tenoch is the vision behind his eyelids, the headache forming there insistently. His voice on the phone had been a curse, even in the platitudes it spoke. The promise that he won’t call does nothing to make Julio feel better.

Julio takes his break early, needing a cigarette though he hasn’t smoked in years. He bums one from the janitor he often passes, promising to buy him a whole new pack one day. Julio walks along the hospital grounds until he reaches the garden where visitors duck out to smoke, glad there’s no one to see him cough at the first inhale, his lungs no longer used to the sting.

He pulls his cell phone out of his pocket with the other hand, staring at the screen and already regretting what he’s about to do. He flips it open and goes to the call log, to the last outgoing call a few minutes past 2 AM. His finger hovers over the call button too long, as he takes another drag of his cigarette and tightens his jaw.

“Fuck him,” he says in resolve, pressing down definitively and holding the phone to his ear to hear it ring. And ring. And ring. It cuts out and for a moment Julio is braced to answer when the voicemail system audio kicks in. Of course Tenoch won’t answer now. Julio wonders if he’s purposefully dodging his call or if he’s actually busy playing pretend, writing words for the vapid beautiful people to say on the screen in the waiting room. Julio sighs, caught between the desire to take it as a sign to hang up or to fire off into the voicemail everything that he’s been feeling. 

The choice is made for him by the sudden beep, recording his intake of breath. He tamps down the message to something not even Tenoch can misunderstand.

“Hey asshole. We’re not doing this over the phone. If you were serious about apologizing, come meet me.” He breathes. “Tonight, meet me.” He rattles off his address because there’s no way Julio can say what he wants to in public.

“See you.” 

\---

Tenoch goes into work late and gets yelled at for it by his boss. He’s missed half the taping already. One of his usual PAs had been thrown into the deep end to cover him on script supervision. She looks so relieved that he’s back and he promises her it won’t happen again. The scene resets before him, actors moving onto marks before the director calls action. He listens to his words parroted back by the actors and actresses with an air of affectation, sometimes too much. Tenoch makes his notes to offer to the director when the take is finished. A word change here, a correction there. It’s not a high budget show, but they run through once more to make sure they have enough for the editors to work with. He hopes the scenes he hadn’t been there for hadn’t come out too disjointed, knowing it will be his head if there’s a problem.

He feels disjointed himself, wishing the past few weeks of his life could just be taped over too. Even the past twenty four hours would be enough, he thinks, as they break for lunch. He’s only just gotten there so he goes for a walk instead, to evade the co-workers unused to him being anything but professional. He walks around the outside of the studio, coming to a stop to lean against the building in the sun, wishing he could simply melt there and forget about everything else. His phone vibrates in his pocket but he doesn’t answer, not wanting to face up to his boss again just yet. Once his mind is more clear he can call back and smooth things over. 

The phone pings again, the alert of a voicemail and he curses, drawing it from his pocket just to check that he’s right.

He isn’t. _1 Missed call at 1:45 from Julio_. _1 Voicemail left at 1:46 from Julio._

Tenoch blinks at the name like he must have imagined it, he’d promised he wouldn’t call back. He never assumed Julio would. He opens his voicemail and presses play, clutching the hard plastic of the phone case too tight when he brings it up to his ear.

 _“Hey asshole, we’re not doing this over the phone. If you were serious about apologizing, come meet me. Tonight, meet me._ ” Julio lists off his address. There’s a pause on the end of the line, a rattle of static before his tired voice breaks in again. _”See you.”_

_If you would like to listen to the message again, press one. If you would like to delete, press two. If you would like to call the number back, press three. If you are finished listening ha-_

Tenoch presses one, listens again, and once more. He doesn’t know how long he stands there, wondering if he has the guts to do this for real, to let Julio know everything. His PA comes to find him, looking even more frustrated than before, calling him back to set.

“Sorry, of course,” he says, following in her swift footsteps. The phone is still in his hand when he goes inside, and in the last moment before he’s called to attention he shoots off a text.

_**To Julio from Tenoch:** _

**_I’ll be there._ **

\---

Tenoch takes a taxi to Julio’s even though he really should save the money. He’s too nervous to trust himself on the bus, to trust that he wouldn’t just skip Julio’s stop and ride to the end of the line. The silence is better anyways, a chance to gather his thoughts. He scrambles to get what he means to say on paper, but it all comes out incoherent and too raw.

 _I never meant to hurt you_ is a lie, _I never got over you_ is too honest, enough that it would only make Julio hate him more. He writes _I could still be in love with you, if we hadn’t...I hadn’t,_ he cuts himself off, crossing it out in a jagged stroke. Julio probably has enough ‘what if’s without Tenoch adding to the pile. He wonders what Julio even expects to come of this, if there’s even the slightest chance he feels as tangled up inside as Tenoch has these past seven years. Tenoch can’t follow that line of thought, too close to hope for comfort. 

He’s there to apologize, not to make things worse and so he sticks to three facts, that he’s an asshole like Julio said, that he’ll leave Julio alone, that they can go back to just being old memories to one another and move on. It’s not what he wants but he’s glad to realize what he didn’t back then, _it isn’t always about him._

They arrive at the address Julio gave him, and the taxi driver clears his throat in annoyance. Tenoch pays him quickly and gets out. He stands on the sidewalk looking up at the tall building. It’s so much nicer than the one Julio grew up in, than the one Tenoch lives in now for that matter. He takes a deep breath and goes inside, finding ‘Zapata’ on the listing posted by the entryway and pressing the buzzer before he can lose his nerve. He wonders, for a too long pause, if Julio will even let him up at all. Tenoch knows he would deserve it if he didn’t.

The door buzzes back, lock clicking open and Tenoch slips in. He takes the elevator, not needing to be more out of breath than he already feels. He enters the floor number and stands awkwardly as the elevator rises. The list of things to say is crumpled in his pocket, incoherent but reassuring all the same. The elevator opens and Tenoch gets out, looking both ways to figure which way the numbers go before he spots the door at the edge of his vision and heads toward it. 

He stands in front of the door but doesn’t knock yet, trying to make his heart rate settle. He can’t come off as desperate if he wants Julio to trust him this time. He can’t cry. He reaches up and brushes a hand back through his hair.

Before he can knock, the door opens. Julio stands there looking at him, unimpressed and flushed with anger already. His gaze is expectant, and Tenoch wonders if he’s meant to spill his guts right there in the hallway. He opens his mouth, searching for the words, even some from the stupid list in his pocket would do, but Julio just looks at him with a long sigh, stepping back to hold the door open wider.

“Come in.”

\---

Julio can hear Tenoch outside the door, shuffling around and stalling. _Is he really considering running still?_ It wouldn’t be out of character, at least. Julio doesn’t give him the chance, pulling the door open to make the confrontation unavoidable. He’ll make it quick if he has to, if Tenoch wants so badly to run. Tenoch startles, dark eyes darting to meet Julio’s. There’s a pause where neither of them says anything, Julio brought back from the edge of his anger in a single look. Tenoch looks miserable, eyes wide and tired as he holds himself stiffly. If Julio were cruel, he might consider Tenoch pathetic. As it is, there’s still a part of Julio yearning to protect him. Julio steps back to escape his own desperate urge to reach out, watching Tenoch swallow hard. 

Julio sighs and lets him in. 

Julio makes himself turn away, not looking at Tenoch again as he leads him over to the couch. He gestures for Tenoch to sit and goes to the kitchen to get the good Mezcal his sister had bought him for his birthday. He doesn’t take long, too keyed up to hide from this now. He pours two glasses and brings the whole bottle back out with him, not bothering with ice or chasers. He sits at the far edge of his small couch, setting the glasses on the coffee table and taking a long draw from his own. He still can’t speak to Tenoch, not out of fear so much as to stall the inevitable fight. Tenoch mirrors him, drinking down a quarter of the glass in one go.

“I don’t know why I invited you here,” Julio admits. It’s not the entire truth, the more complicated part where he can’t tell Tenoch off like he’d initially set out to. It would have been easier on the phone, he thinks. He’s just still fucked up enough to need to know if Tenoch would come at Julio’s call.

“I can go,” Tenoch offers. Julio shakes his head. 

Tenoch takes another sip of his drink and when he puts the glass back down Julio notices the slip of paper resting on his knee, scribbled over with indiscernible writing.

“Is that what you wanted to say to me?” Julio asks. Tenoch crumples it in his hand, face going flush.

“It isn’t right,” Tenoch says, “I thought I could…” He cuts himself off, shaking his head, the same sad tone to his voice Julio had been unable to ignore over the phone. “I need to apologize.”

“Then do it, Tenoch,” Julio says, “do it and you can go.”

Tenoch’s mouth tenses before he speaks.

“I’m sorry,” Tenoch says, “I can’t...I don’t know what I was thinking that day on the beach, I’m sorry for bothering you. For everything, really.” Tenoch says it like he’s run through fire, like that small summation could possibly mean enough. 

“If that’s all you have to say, then I can’t accept the apology. Fuck, if it were that simple we would have said goodbye on the phone already, don’t you think?” Tenoch looks hurt at the words, but Julio continues. “What’s on the paper?”

“It’s nothing,” Tenoch says, frustration eking into the words, “I’m trying my best to tell you-”

“You’re not. You’re not even close.” 

“What would be enough?” Tenoch asks. “How can I possibly convince you that...I mean this, that I…”

“On your knees,” Julio hears himself say, before he can bite his lip to hold the words back. The memory of Tenoch saying the same to him in that dingy motel room, how serious it had all been over the girls they screwed, never touching their real issues. How he had wanted Tenoch so badly then already. Tenoch looks lost at the order, mouth falling open.

“You heard me,” Julio says, knowing he sounds more exhausted than vindictive and not caring. “Apologize to me like I did to you at the motel.” Tenoch shuts his mouth, like the pieces are falling together as he stands. Where Julio had expected him to storm off at the comment, he has to suppress the surprised sound at the back of his throat when Tenoch does as he’s told, kneeling too close in front of him.

“I’m sorry, Julio,” Tenoch says again, eyes wide with the sincerity he had lacked back then, when he kneeled for an instant in a petty gesture. Everything about his posture then had screamed denial. Julio looks and finds none of it now, just compliance and regret written in Tenoch’s unyielding gaze. 

“Be specific,” Julio says, when he finds his voice, remembering how Tenoch had asked him about every detail of the encounter with Ana, wondering if it had helped him to know. Tenoch takes a deep breath, but doesn’t falter.

“For being a coward, for pushing you away, for not being honest with you.”

“Which time?” Julio asks, with an edge to the words. Tenoch’s jaw tenses.

“When you fucked Cece?” he prompts, Tenoch’s eyes flit away and his chest heaves in a sigh as he nods in answer. “When you fucked me? When you said you loved me?”

“Julio,” Tenoch says, sounding forlorn. 

“Just answer,” Julio says, the words coming out softer than he’d meant them to. Tenoch shakes his head, looking down and it’s so frustrating that Julio reaches out. Tenoch flinches but doesn’t pull away at the touch of Julio’s fingers on his jaw, forcing him to look up. His eyes are glassy, like he’s only just blinked back tears. It makes something in Julio’s chest burn.

“I meant it that night,” Tenoch says, “that’s what the paper says.”

Julio thinks he knew, deep down, but still the words ache.

“Get up,” Julio says, not caring if he sounds shaky. The realization strikes, with sudden fierceness, that what he wants more than anything is to kiss Tenoch breathless. Tenoch doesn’t move, looking away again, looking anywhere but at Julio. He reaches out, grasping at any part of Tenoch he can reach to pull him up from the floor. Tenoch lets himself be pulled in, somehow realizing that this isn’t a fight anymore. Julio pulls him forward and Tenoch settles to straddle his lap. His fingers curl in Tenoch’s shirt, tugging him forward into a fevered press of lips.

They fit together like they had back then, slightly mismatched but complimentary. Julio chases the curve of Tenoch’s mouth with his own and wonders how long this can last before it breaks, unwilling to pull back and look Tenoch in the eye to find out. He slides his hands down, curving his fingers along Tenoch’s hips.

Julio knows this is probably a mistake but can’t bring himself to care, resolving that his heart can’t get any more broken anyway.

\---

Tenoch wants to drown in Julio’s kiss. He’s wanted this too much, too desperately to play coy now. He tilts his head and Julio makes a needy sound, pulling Tenoch impossibly closer. He’s hard already and feeling the strain of Julio’s cock through his jeans makes him gasp, breaking away to catch his breath. Julio is panting, but still doesn’t back off, shifting his hands to tug at the hem of Tenoch’s shirt. Tenoch untangles his hands from Julio’s shirt to lift his arms obediently, wanting nothing more than the press of skin. Of _Julio._ He couldn’t have been prepared for this to happen if he tried, would never have thought that Julio would still want any part of him.

It isn’t love and it isn’t easy but it’s something he won’t refuse. He means to savor it too, leaning in after Julio strips away his own shirt to kiss a trail of kisses down his neck, sucking a bruise into his collarbone as Julio lets out a breathy curse. His beard scrapes against Julio’s skin, a path of irritation showing where his mouth has been. Tenoch shifts his weight, pressing Julio further into the couch and twisting his hips to grind down.

Julio groans and the sound makes Tenoch shiver. He slides back so he can unbutton Julio’s jeans, aching to touch him.

“Tenoch,” Julio pants, putting a hand to Tenoch’s chest to stop him. Tenoch stills, looking up to focus on Julio’s face. He looks wrecked already, skin flushed and pupils blown with want, and Tenoch wishes he hadn’t stopped, letting his hand inch further up Julio’s thigh.

“Let me,” Tenoch says, unable to feel embarrassed at how badly he wants this. Julio shakes his head, grasping Tenoch’s wrist in a loose grip.

“It’s not right,” Julio breathes, “not part of your apology, you shouldn’t.”

“ _Please_ , don’t stop this unless...unless you don’t want me.”

Julio looks overwhelmed for a moment, eyes tracing from Tenoch’s eyes down to his lips.

“If you’re sure.” 

Tenoch nods, moving to pull his wrist from Julio’s grasp, but he won’t let up, pressing forward instead to capture Tenoch’s mouth in a kiss that’s far more gentle. Their mouths melt together, warm and slow and craving.

“Let’s go to my room,” Julio says, easing back to breathe. Tenoch can’t help but smile at the words, the weight of them that says _I need you_.

Tenoch climbs off of Julio’s lap, offering his hand to help Julio up. Julio doesn’t let go, using the grasp to lead Tenoch down the hall to his bed. Tenoch bounces slightly when Julio pushes him back onto the mattress. It’s only an instant before he’s reaching for the zipper of Tenoch’s pants and eagerly helping him to pull them off. Tenoch leans forward to do the same, edging Julio’s pants down past his hips and off to reveal his cock straining through his boxers. 

Julio takes a step closer, reaching out to brace his hands on Tenoch’s shoulders, his gaze alight with heat. He pushes for Tenoch to lie back, but he doesn’t obey, ducking forward instead. He kisses Julio’s stomach with all the tenderness he feels, teasing a hot line downward with shuddering patience. He can feel Julio’s sharp intake of breath when he reaches the edge of his boxers, but he doesn’t stop, dipping down further to mouth against his cock through the thin fabric. Tenoch looks up and Julio’s biting his lip. Tenoch brings his hands up to slide off the boxers, waiting for Julio’s small fervent nod before he pulls them down entirely. Julio is a sight like this, his uncircumcised cock already flushed and leaking. Tenoch leans in to lap at the head, savoring the taste in small licks that make Julio’s breathing speed up. He brings up a hand to Julio’s hip to keep him from jerking forward, taking him into his mouth more fully in an easy slide of lips. Julio curses, one hand tightening on Tenoch’s shoulder while the other shifts to Tenoch’s neck, his thumb brushing the underside of Tenoch’s jaw and across the thick stubble of his untrimmed beard. If he'd known that this was even a possibility he would have shaved first.

Tenoch takes down as much of Julio’s length as he can without being choked, sucking and twisting his tongue as Julio gasps. He’s good at this and he thinks Julio is surprised by the fact, his hand coming up from Tenoch’s shoulder to rest in his hair. Julio clenches his fingers and it makes Tenoch’s stomach swoop in want, throat vibrating with an unbidden sound that he hears echoed in Julio’s soft moan. He wants Julio so much that he barely pauses to breathe and he knows he’s sick for the way it only makes him harder, only pulling off when he feels dizzy.

Julio whines and Tenoch brings up his hand to keep working his cock in a rhythm while he catches his breath. This is the space where he would talk dirty if he was with anyone else, but now all he can do is strain his neck to see how flushed Julio looks, to think how much he wants to kiss those open, panting lips again. This is nothing like the last time they were together and he’s glad for it, finally the sole focus of each other’s attention without Luisa as a bridge to jump from. He loved her for it, but still, he needs this. He runs his free hand down from Julio’s hip, feeling the firm muscle of his thigh, down to Julio’s knee as he fucks forward into Tenoch’s hand, into the eager twist and slide of it.

Tenoch swallows hard and ducks in again, to lap at the length where his hand won’t cover fully, sucking a kiss to the head of Julio’s cock. Julio makes a sudden strangled sound, babbling Tenoch’s name in belated warning as he comes. His release bursts over Tenoch’s tongue and he pulls back, letting the rest catch against his lips and chin. Julio’s eyes have fluttered closed and he nearly slumps forward when he’s spent. 

Tenoch scoots backward on the mattress enough to pull Julio down onto his lap. The friction of his weight almost sends Tenoch over the edge right then, grasping at Julio’s back to shift the angle so he won’t. Julio’s cock brushes against Tenoch’s stomach and he makes a sound like a sob, clearly still oversensitive. His eyes are open and he’s staring at Tenoch, at his lips, the mess of come he feels cooling on his chin. He looks transfixed and Tenoch darts out his tongue to lick some of it away from the edge of his mouth.

“ _Fuck_ ,” Julio swears, leaning closer and capturing the lips and his own taste for himself. If he thought the kisses before were intense, they are nothing compared to this, the greedy way Julio licks into his mouth and takes everything. It makes Tenoch forget how miserable he's been for the last seven years. His chest shakes with a muffled laugh at the burst of happiness and heady warmth he feels. It goes on and on and Tenoch thrusts up, not caring if he comes in his underwear if he can just have this for another moment. Julio pulls back at the movement, though, teasing kisses down Tenoch’s neck, biting him there as he whimpers.

“Please, let me come. I’m so close,” Tenoch begs for mercy. Julio shakes his head, but it’s not cruel.

“Shhh, I’ve got you,” Julio says, pushing Tenoch so his back is flat on the bed. Julio rolls off of him and Tenoch shivers at the loss of weight and heat. Julio doesn’t tease, running a hand down Tenoch’s stomach, reaching for the waistband of his underwear. Tenoch lifts his hips so Julio can slide them down, kicking his legs to remove them entirely. He thinks he should feel more exposed this way, but all he feels is electric in anticipation. 

Julio wraps a hand around him and his chest heaves at the hot slide, hips bucking up to match the quick rhythm Julio sets. Julio shifts, throwing a leg over Tenoch’s, the press of his body adding to the coiling heat in Tenoch’s stomach. Tenoch brings a hand up, grasping at Julio’s neck to pull him in for another kiss. Their teeth clash in his urgency, mouths moving sloppy and harsh. Julio is only momentarily distracted, pace slowing as he rubs a thumb over the tip of Tenoch’s cock in a tender motion.

Julio face is so close when they part that he’s almost out of focus. Tenoch feels his hot breath as he presses his forehead to Tenoch’s temple.

“C’mon,” Julio breathes, voice low in Tenoch’s ear, quickening the rhythm again until Tenoch comes with a gasp, spurting hot against Julio’s stomach and his own. Julio works him through the aftershocks, kissing the moan from his lips as he all but sobs. Julio only lets up in his gentle touch when Tenoch shakes his head, lifting the hand that had been fisted in the sheets to push at Julio’s shoulder. Julio lets up with a smirk and Tenoch feels overwhelmed, the urge to kiss him again before this all fades away outweighing all else as the drum tight tension of his body fades. 

He manages a bare brush of lips before Julio ducks his head away, pressing his face into Tenoch’s shoulder. His hand slides up from Tenoch’s softening cock to splay in the mess on Tenoch’s stomach. The sight makes Tenoch’s cock twitch in interest despite how overstimulated he feels, needing to shut his eyes just to calm his heart rate.

\---

Julio lifts his hand from the mess on Tenoch’s stomach. Tenoch blinks his eyes open as if still dazed, watching the movement. Julio doesn’t know what to do with the mess and, in a moment of daring, brings his fingers up close to Tenoch’s lips. It’s a boundary they’ve already broken tonight, when Julio had tasted his own come on Tenoch’s tongue. Tenoch takes the hint, tongue peeking past his lips to taste his release and lick Julio clean. His tongue works in broad swipes, thorough and utterly filthy. Julio presses the same hand to Tenoch’s chest when it’s clean enough, feeling the thrumming beat of Tenoch’s heart at his fingertips.

He has to shake himself to remember this is _real_ , and at the same time remind himself it’s _not_. Just because Tenoch used to love him doesn’t mean he does now, that he wants anything more than a restless fuck. It doesn’t mean Julio can just forgive him for walking away, that he could blindly trust him not to do it again. This means _nothing_.

Tenoch’s soft touch at Julio’s wrist betrays all that, lifting Julio’s hand to his lips again to press a kiss to his palm. His eyes never leave Julio’s and it’s too much. Julio pulls his hand away. Something flashes in Tenoch’s eyes and Julio won’t let himself believe it’s hurt. 

After everything, it can’t be.

The silence becomes more stilted between them, Tenoch’s body going tense. He’ll leave soon, Julio knows, and still he can’t help the pain in his chest when Tenoch shifts out from under him, untangling their legs. Julio turns over, looking away, unsure if he can watch Tenoch scramble away again like he had that morning on the beach.

“You’re still a coward,” slips past Julio’s lips. He can’t see it, but he hears Tenoch stumble where he had been pulling his pants back on. Julio turns his neck and Tenoch is staring at him, face gone flush with anger of all things. Julio can’t bite his tongue around the next words, “I’ll see you in another seven years, I guess.”

“Did you want me to stay?” Tenoch asks, disarmingly, as if Julio’s desires had ever meant anything.

“It doesn’t matter,” Julio says, resignation settling like a heavy weight. He expects Tenoch to keep dressing, to run like always, but he still just stands there. It’s a frustrating sight.

“It does,” Tenoch says quietly and then with more emotion, “Julio, what the fuck do you _want_ from me?” He looks ridiculous, standing there with his jeans half pulled up his thighs. When Julio lets his eyes trace over Tenoch’s features he’s surprised to see the tears, in the instant before Tenoch swipes at them furiously. “I’m not a fucking mind reader.”

Julio sits up, shifting his legs over the side of the bed where Tenoch stands and scrambling for the words he wants to say. He looks up at Tenoch’s desperate tearstained face and suddenly he can’t play this game any longer. His mind keeps wandering back to the single question, _why had he invited Tenoch back here if there was no chance for them?_

He looks at Tenoch and he can’t lie anymore, can’t push Tenoch away when he is clearly lost, clearly trying. Julio can try too, even if every piece of their history screams out against it.

“I want this,” Julio admits, Tenoch lets out a shuddering breath.

“Want what? To fuck me? To get me on my knees again to apologize for the rest of my life? I can’t.”

Julio shakes his head, giving in to the urge to reach out this time, resting a hand on Tenoch’s elbow and sliding it down to tangle their fingers together. 

“No, you asshole. I want _you_.” 

“You don’t know me,” Tenoch says, vulnerably, “you barely knew me back then.” Julio could argue against that, but he knows it’s true, years wasted in the vapid throes of adolescence that feel like another lifetime. 

“I know,” Julio pauses, trying to set the words right in his mind. “I want to though. I want to - to see you, to see how you are, or how you’ve changed. I want to find out what we both missed.”

Tenoch meets his eyes, and for all the hell they’ve put each other through, there’s hope. If they work this out, then maybe that time won’t have been a waste. Tenoch shuffles closer, jeans slipping back down as he stands in the vee of Julio’s legs.

Tenoch bends down and captures Julio’s lips and for once it’s not an ending.

\---

Eventually, they go back to the beach together, to Heaven's Mouth. They listen to the soft exhale of the tide.

They let the sea wash them clean.


	3. Coda

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Together at Heaven's Mouth.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to misskatieleigh for reading this over <3

Tenoch tangled his fingers with Julio’s as they walked, the feel of the sand between his toes was soft and his heart felt softer still. The crush of the waves echoed and when he looked up it felt like they might be the only two people in the world. For all the fraught memories the beach held, being there somehow felt like home.

His gaze flitted over Julio, the expanse of his tan skin Tenoch was no longer afraid to touch, and couldn’t keep the smile from his lips. 

“What?” Julio asked, nudging against Tenoch’s shoulder, the same tentative but bright look in his eyes that he’d been holding these past months. Like he had hope but deep down was waiting for the other shoe to drop. Tenoch would stay a lifetime to wash it away, to earn his belief. 

Tenoch shrugged in response, lifting Julio’s hand to his lips, to brush a kiss to his knuckles. For all that it made Julio call him a sap, it was a touch that said everything. Julio’s steps faltered and he looked at Tenoch then, his eyes like sea glass churned from broken bottles in the lapse of their time apart. Tenoch pulled him close, into the closure of his arms and Julio sighed into the embrace.

Julio rested his forehead against Tenoch’s, staring him down in soft focus, until Tenoch shifted to brush their lips together. Tenoch tried to press everything he felt into it, that he was still sorry that he’d missed so much, that he’d keep trying to make up for it as long as Julio allowed. Julio opened to the kiss, like it was understood. Tenoch brought up his free hand to splay at the small of Julio’s back, the grit of sand grounding them to the earth. To stand in the place where everything fell apart and pull Julio close, to love him under the sun’s rays without fear, felt like life. 

Even when they parted Julio stuck close, resting his head on Tenoch’s shoulder, looking out past it to the constant sea, his heartbeat steady as the current. 

“Want to race?” Tenoch asked, old thrill kicking in his chest, that maybe not everything from back then was bad.

“Only if you’re prepared to lose,” Julio teased and pulled back, pressing another kiss to Tenoch’s lips that left him breathless and then, like a shot, taking off towards the water in his distraction. Tenoch laughed though Julio couldn’t hear it. Tenoch smiled and chased him into the cold water, past their foolish ghosts in the surf, hoping he would catch Julio this time.


End file.
